Claremont, Calif. - The Pomona-Pitzer Women's Tennis team, ranked No. 7 nationally, took a 2-1 lead after three tight doubles matches and then dominated singles to earn a 7-2 win over No. 13 MIT on Thursday at Pauley Tennis Complex. 

With the win, the Sagehens improve to 8-3 on the year, with six wins coming against nationally ranked teams, while MIT slips to 13-3 with the loss.

Doubles were a battle as the Engineers took the first point at No. 1 (8-5) and No. 2 and No. 3 were both tied 7-7. The Sagehens held serve to force a tiebreaker at No. 2 tied 8-8 and came away with the 7-5 win, as freshmen Emily Chen and Shivani Doraiswami fell behind 5-4 but took the last three points to win it.

(pictured: Chen and Doraiswami celebrate a key point in the tiebreaker)

With the score tied 1-1, sophomore Maddie Gordon and freshman Maryann Zhao bounced back after seeing a 7-4 lead slip away and took the final two games for a 9-7 win, as Zhao had a service winner on match point to give the Sagehens some momentum going into singles.

Pomona-Pitzer then took control in singles, winning the first set on all six courts and going on to five straight-set wins, with MIT salvaging the final point of the match at No. 6 in a third-set tiebreaker. Freshman Grace Hruska won at No. 4 (6-3, 6-3) and Zhao won the final five games at No. 3 for a 6-1, 7-5 win to put the Sagehens ahead 4-1.

It was then a three-way race for the clinching point, with Doraiswami taking a 6-2, 6-2 win at No. 2 for a 5-1 lead, moments before junior Lea Lynn Yen won 6-2, 6-3 at No. 3. Freshman Emily Kuo, who was the first of the three to get to match point, ended up with a 6-0, 6-3 win to make the score 7-1, as she has now outscored her opponents 60-11 in her last 10 sets.

Pomona-Pitzer is back in action tomorrow when it hosts Whittier for a 2 p.m. SCIAC contest, before then meeting No. 9 Middlebury on Saturday at 10 a.m.